


Professor Xavier's Haunted Mansion

by Edonohana



Category: Marvel 616, New Mutants, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, F/F, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 07:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15769287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: The ghosts of dead (or temporarily dead, or dead in another timeline) X-Men and villains haunt the halls of Professor X's mansion.





	Professor Xavier's Haunted Mansion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rosencrantz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosencrantz/gifts).



> I had to juggle comics timelines a bit to get everyone I wanted in this story in the mansion at the same time. Please consider that part of the AU.

Professor Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters is haunted. 

Even the Professor himself, the most powerful telepath in existence, does not know. Sometimes, when his gift is amplified by Cerebro, he catches the merest glimpse, the faintest flutter at the edges of his awareness. And then it dissolves into nothingness, a phantom forgotten as soon as he removes the headset.

But the ghosts still walk the halls of his mansion, unseen and unknown. Some are visitors, drawn by the living people they loved or hated in life, and still love or hate in death. Others resided in the mansion while they lived, and stayed on afterward. 

As Ororo creates a miniature rainstorm to water her hothouse flowers, a Kenyan princess reaches out to touch her shoulder. Ororo doesn’t feel N'Dare’s fond caress, not quite; but her own hand drifts upward until mother and daughter’s fingers occupy the same space in unknowing accord.

Logan sleeps badly; he always has. He knows why, but assumes that the multitude of ghosts that haunt his bedside are only metaphor and memory. They are not. Sometimes he bolts awake, shuddering and gasping, and for a moment knows that the shade of Mariko Yashida really did just kiss him, or that the ghost of Thomas Logan really did just fire a phantasmal shotgun blast into his face. For a moment. And then he retracts his claws, wipes the sweat from his face, tells himself it was just a dream, and gets up to have a beer or twelve.

Sometimes Piotr sees a blur in the corner of his eye, dull gray as Riptide's filthy hair, and his hands clench unconsciously as he recalls the crack as the murderer’s neck snapped in his steely grip. And then he walks on, wondering why he still feels haunted by a deed that he _knows_ was justified.

But now the X-Men are gone from the mansion, off to save the world again. Kitty, who is recovering from a nasty bout of the flu, has been left behind in the care of her roommate Illyana. And so, in the dead of winter, the New Mutants and Kitty are alone in the mansion.

Or so they think…

 

“Hey, roomie!” Illyana calls. “I’m doing laundry. Got any?”

Kitty blinks sleep out of her eyes as Lockheed, who’s been hogging the pillow, nuzzles at her cheek. “Thanks, Ilyana. That’s sweet of you.”

“No problem.” If Kitty wants to believe that her demon sorceress roommate, sometimes teammate, and girlfriend is _sweet_ , against all evidence and experience, far be it from Illyana to disillusion her. She crams Kitty’s armful of laundry into her sack and heads down toward the laundry room.

The halls of the mansion seem dark and shadowy. Wind rattles the windows in their frames, and the lights flicker briefly. A faint hum sounds at the edge of Illyana’s hearing. She frowns, wondering if there’s trouble with the electricity. And that is a subject which she knows absolutely nothing about. Kitty is great with wires and circuits, but if Illyana had any intention of letting her abandon her warm bed and her much-needed rest, she’d have made her roommate do her own damn laundry. Illyana mentally runs down the list of her teammates. Amara is hopeless, of course. Nova Roma is up there with Limbo in terms of low-tech hometowns. The way Rahne talks about Scotland, you’d think they still lit their homes with burning peat. As for Danielle…

The worn seams of the laundry sack split, spilling crumpled sweaty laundry across the hallway. Now she’ll have to go all the way back to her room to borrow Kitty’s sack, then return and stuff it all back in, then haul it downstairs to the laundry room. And then back to her room, and then back down to the laundry room to put the wet clothes in the dryer, and then back to her room, and then back to the laundry room to collect the dried clothes, and then back to her room again. 

It’s a minor chore, but it suddenly feels overwhelming and infuriating. Why is life so full of pointless drudgery? Why should she, the Darkchilde, the Queen of Limbo, have to do _laundry?_

She doesn’t, of course. She can get her demons to do it for her. With a grin, Illyana summons a stepping disc and transports the laundry to Limbo. An instant (several hours of Limbo time) later she summons another disc to return it. And sighs.

Her faithful minions, fearful of her wrath, did indeed do the laundry. It’s clean, if scented faintly with sulphur and brimstone, and neatly laid out for her inspection. It’s also been altered to suit the tastes of demons. Illyana’s fashionably ripped jeans now have colorful bloodstains and ichor stains decorating the edges of each tear. Her sneakers have sharp spikes on the soles, and the shoelace tips are now tiny glass vials containing a roiling liquid which Illyana recognizes as a corrosive poison. Kitty’s panda-print pajamas are now Elder God-print. 

Irritated, Illyana decides to call up another disc. This time she’ll accompany the laundry to Limbo to make sure it’s done right. 

But before she can summon the disc, a flash of white lightning makes her start. A gigantic boom of thunder follows, shaking the mansion. The lights go out. When they come back on, Nightcrawler stands before her. 

“Kurt!” Illyana exclaims, delighted. “I didn’t think you were all coming back this soon…”

Her words trail off as his face splits into a hideously familiar leer. “Hello, leibling. Did you miss me?”

This isn't the man she knows. It's his counterpart from an alternate timeline, the Kurt Wagner whom the demon Belasco, the former lord of Limbo, remade into a twisted mirror of his own foul self. Cold terror jolts through Illyana. Inside her heart and soul, she is a child again, small and helpless, at the mercy of powerful adults who mean to do her harm. She staggers backwards until she hits the wall, then stands there trembling. 

The demonic Nightcrawler vanishes in a puff of smoke, and reappears with his three-fingered hands planted on the walls on either side of her face. The triangle of his tail-tip snakes upward and trails a loathsome caress down her cheek. “Well, _I’ve_ missed _you._ ”

Flinching away, she whispers, “You can't be here. I saw you die in Limbo.”

But she knows that means nothing. Belasco can raise the dead. She’s seen it. It’s why no matter how much she was tempted, she never tried to kill herself.

Nightcrawler nods as his tail begins to wind and tighten around her throat. “Yes. I’m dead. And soon you will be too.”

 

Upstairs, Kitty yawns and stretches. Her bed is so cozy and warm, and feels even more so on such a dark and stormy night. She can’t wait for Illyana to get back, so the two of them can snuggle up together, both in their freshly tumble-dried pajamas. 

She coughs, reaches for her cough drops, and knocks the tin off the table instead. It rolls under the bed. Kitty groans at the thought of having to emerge from under her blankets and then crawl under the bed, then grins. She phases, reaches _through_ the bed, retrieves the cough drops, and solidifies herself and them.

As she starts to open the tin, a brilliant flash of sheet lightning makes the shadows of the room stand out harsh and black. An instant later, thunder sounds as loud as an explosion, jolting the bed. The lights go out. 

When they come back on, Kitty jerks backward. A woman is standing at the foot of her bed. Reflexively, Kitty phases. But the woman doesn’t attack, but only stands there, staring. Kitty stares right back. Her visitor is middle-aged and wears every year of it like a weight upon her back. Her brown hair is pulled into a bun, her face is lined and weary, and she wears a baggy green outfit and an electronic collar around her neck. She’s no one Kitty’s ever seen before, and yet she looks strangely—hauntingly—familiar. 

“Who are you?” Kitty asks.

The woman’s face twists, but Kitty can’t identify the emotion. Her voice sounds harsh and raw as she says, “Katherine Pryde? Kitty?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Kate,” says the woman. “Kate Pryde.”

Kitty sucks in her breath. Kate Pryde! Her older alternate self, with whom she’d exchanged minds but never really met.

“Did you do it?” Kate asks urgently. “Did you change the future? Did Rachel?”

“It’s complicated,” Kitty replies. “You sent Rachel back, right?”

Kate nods. “And then I died.”

“You… What?”

“I died,” Kate repeats flatly. “Did you think I came back from the future? I came back from the dead. Because there’s something I need to know—something I need to fix, if it hasn’t been fixed already. Did Rachel and I succeed? Did we stop the future? Did we save everyone? Did we save ourselves?”

Kitty hates to disappoint Kate, who is her and not her, and who looks so desperate. And she hates the thought that she might become Kate, who lived such a hard life and saw almost everyone she loved die. Kitty looks at the wrinkles in Kate’s face, every one etched by pain and loss, and prays that a kinder fate will draw its lines on her.

“This isn’t your past. It never was. It’s an alternate timeline.” The one thing that consoles Kitty in having to break this news is that at least she doesn’t need to explain what an alternate timeline is. Kate, who lived Kitty’s life (more or less) before it all went wrong, has at least as much experience with those as Kitty herself. “When you exchanged minds with me—when you sent Rachel back—you changed our future, maybe. Not your own. I’m sorry.”

Kate closes her eyes, her entire body sagging with weariness. Then she straightens. “Fine. We’ll try again. Red?”

A familiar figure begins to fade into view, flickering with an aura of fire. Kitty’s heart leaps as she recognizes the woman she hasn’t seen or heard from in months, then lurches at the realization that she too must be a ghost. That Rachel isn’t merely lost, but dead. And then the figure comes clearly into focus, and Kitty realizes that it isn’t her Rachel. This woman has her Hound tattoos clearly visible on her face, and she's older than the Rachel Kitty knew, even older than Kate; she still wears her hair in its short-on-the-top, braid-in-back style, but it’s gray as ash.

Rachel looks wistfully at Kitty, then takes Kate’s hand. “Ready for another jump?”

Kate nods. “Ready. Maybe this time we’ll get it right.”

“But you’re _dead!_ ” Kitty cries out. “Isn’t it time to rest? Haven’t you done enough?”

“Never enough,” says Kate, her voice a whisper of wind as she begins to fade away.

“I’m the Phoenix,” says Rachel. “Why should I let death stop me?” 

And with a brilliant burst of flame, both women vanish. 

Kitty blinks the dazzle from her eyes. The room is empty, the rain beating hard against the windowpanes. It’s the sort of night that makes even the least imaginative person wonder if _something_ is tapping at the glass, and she’s been sick for a week. Maybe it was all just a very vivid fever dream. “Did you see them too, Lockheed?”

Lockheed bumps her side with his head, then steals a cough drop and crunches it. She’s clearly not going to get any answers from him. 

“I wish Illyana was here,” Kitty tells him. 

At her own words, she realizes that her girlfriend’s been gone for way too long. It’s not as if she could’ve fallen into the washing machine… but maybe she got sucked into a dimensional portal that opened inside the washing machine. Or attacked by the latest villains to infiltrate the mansion. Or, though Kitty doesn’t want to believe it, Illyana too could have been waylaid by the ghosts of futures that Kitty really hopes aren’t yet to come. 

She gets up, sticks her feet into a pair of Yoda slippers, and pads out of the room. Lockheed sensibly stays in bed. 

 

Illyana tears at the demon Nightcrawler’s strangling tail, but her fingers go right through it. She can’t breathe. Black starbursts are beginning to fill her field of vision. 

_How can it be choking me when I can’t touch it?_ she wonders dazedly, then remembers her Soulsword, which disrupts magic but has no effect on physical objects. And cut Kitty’s cheek when she was in a phased state…

With a final burst of will, forcing herself to stay conscious, Illyana stretches out her hand and summons her Soulsword. With a deft flip of her wrist, she slashes through Nightcrawler’s outstretched tail and slices it in two. 

He screams in agony, jolting her with the ghastly memory of his shriek when Cat pulled his leg into the floor of Belasco’s castle—and let go. Then he vanishes in a puff of smoke. To Illyana’s relief, his severed tail goes with him.

She sags against the wall, gasping, then forces herself to straighten. This certainly won’t be the last attack. 

Sure enough, a yowl pierces the air. Illyana whips around, hoping against hope that she won’t be confronted with a certain servant of Belasco’s, risen from the dead. 

She is, of course: a feral creature, half-woman, half-cat, crouched and snarling. Cat, the alternate Kitty Pryde from the timeline where the child Illyana had been saved from Limbo, and the X-Men left there to die or be cruelly transformed. Cat, who taught Illyana to fight and tried to save her, before Belasco took the rest of her humanity away. 

Cat, whose neck Illyana had snapped. She liked to think it had been a mercy. But that wasn’t why she’d done it. 

Illyana lowers the Soulsword. “Cat? I don’t want to hurt—”

Cat springs, fangs bared and gleaming. Illyana darts to the side—a move Cat taught her—and pierces her to the heart. She dies without a sound.

Illyana stands over her body and watches as it fades away. Her eyes are dry. A better person would have wept. A better person wouldn’t have ruthlessly killed the alter ego of her own girlfriend—twice. Then again, a better person would have chosen to die in Limbo rather than accept evil as the price of survival. 

As always, it seems to Illyana that she made the wrong choice. As always, she can’t imagine herself choosing otherwise.

“Belasco!” Illyana shouts, brandishing her Soulsword high. “No more minions! Show yourself!”

“Belasco won’t come,” says a voice she recognizes. A voice that breaks her heart. 

_Not him,_ she pleads with one power she doesn’t believe in, and another that laughs at mercy. _Oh please, not him. He was never corrupted in Limbo. He died as himself. It’s too cruel to undo that._

A better person would close her eyes and let herself be slain rather see her own brother resurrected as some foul demon. But, of course, Illyana is not that person. She turns to face whatever Belasco has made of him.

Piotr—the Piotr who saved his little sister from Limbo at the cost of his own life—is as she saw him last, in his armored form with a gaping wound in his chest. He was an old man when he died, and she can see that even though he’s made of gleaming steel. But there is no evil in his sculpted face, no corruption. His smile is that of the brother she knows.

 _A trick,_ she thinks. But when her lips part, she hears herself say in a wavering voice, “Petya?”

“Hello, Snowflake,” he says. 

Illyana stands as still as if trapped in one of Belasco’s crystals, her Soulsword at the ready. But she doesn’t know if she can bear to use it, not until he gives her some proof of ill intent.

“Belasco won’t come,” her brother repeats. “He has nothing to do with this. And he’s still alive. Only the dead come visiting tonight.”

“But why?”

“Why does anyone do anything? For revenge, for curiosity, to fulfill a promise or continue a quest.” He reaches out a massive hand to touch her hair. “For love. I often visit my own little Snowflake. She’s back with our parents in Siberia. She’s still only eight. She mourns for me, but she laughs, too, and plays in the snow. Sometimes I wish she could see and hear me, but that would frighten her or make her sad. She is too young to understand what happened to me… and perhaps it’s best if she never understands.” 

“It’s best.” A fierce jealousy of that other self, the one who isn’t damned and suffered nothing more than grief, burns in Illyana’s heart. She envies that little girl, and hates her for it. Hates her for her innocence, and for the torment she was spared. And for that, Illyana hates herself most of all.

“I visit you too.”

Startled, Illyana looks up at him. “You do?”

He nods. “So does the sorceress Ororo. So does Logan, who fought too hard to survive Limbo for long. So does the Cat who trained you, the Cat who died when Belasco took away the last of her humanity. And Kurt, whose true self died when Belasco corrupted him. We’re all so proud of you.”

“How can you be?!” Illyana spits out. “I did everything wrong. I let myself be turned to evil. No, I _reveled_ in evil! I’m the Darkchilde, the demon sorceress, the Queen of Limbo. _My_ true self died when I was seven years old!”

“No, it didn’t. There are no small ghosts of you roaming the halls. There is only the young woman who stands before me.” Her brother leans over and presses a cool steel kiss into her forehead. “My beloved sister.”

He fades away. 

Illyana isn’t sure how long she stands there before Kitty pads in, her footsteps soft in her favorite slippers with big whiskery Yoda heads attached to the toes. “Illyana? What happened? You’re crying.”

Wondering, Illyana touches her cheeks. Kitty is right. “I saw my brother—my brother from another timeline—oh, this won’t make any sense…”

“I just saw my own forty-something ghost from another timeline,” Kitty replies. “Try me.”

 

“What I don’t understand is why no one heard anything,” Illyana concludes. “Even if the only people who could hear the ghosts are the people they’re speaking to, everyone should have heard me yelling.”

Kitty frowns, idly prodding at a nightgown of hers which has been fashionably if uncomfortably embroidered with the bones and teeth of a carnivorous rodent native to Limbo. “What I don’t understand is why there’s ghosts at all. But yeah, I didn't hear a thing. I just worried that you might've gotten a visit too. The ghosts might cause a sound-muffling effect in their vicinity.”

The girls look at each other, and the same thought instantly comes to them both. 

“So everyone else could be seeing ghosts too,” says Illyana. 

“Let’s hurry—wait—I can’t run in these.” Kitty kicks off her slippers and reaches for the poison-tipped sneakers. “Can I borrow these?”

Illyana catches her hand. “Better not. Here, take my shoes.” 

“Then you’ll be barefoot.”

“You’re the sickie.”

By the time they sort that out (Illyana, whose childhood in snowy Siberia had gotten her used to moving quickly in awkward shoes, switches footwear with Kitty) and start rounding up the others, the others have already started rounding up themselves. 

The New Mutants and Kitty converge in the kitchen, which everyone seems to think is the least creepy place in the mansion. It still seems pretty creepy, under the circumstances.

“I spoke with my mother,” Amara says softly. “I am sorry that some of you had frightening experiences, but I am glad she came.”

“My daddy visited me.” Sam says nothing more, but it’s obvious that he’s glad too.

“And my grandfather,” says Dani. “It was good to talk to him again. He had a lot to say.”

“So did my parents!” Rahne says excitedly. “Och, it was so nice to meet them at last. My mum looks just like me, only pretty!”

“You’re pretty, Rahne,” says Dani. 

Roberto sighs, but sounds more wistful than unhappy. “Juliana said she doesn’t blame me.” 

Warlock says, “Self did not see self’s progenitor, and self is glad.”

“Well, you wouldn’t,” Sam pointed out. “He’s not dead.” 

“So Illyana and I were the only ones who saw anyone other than people who loved us?” Kitty asks curiously. 

Dani chuckles. “I was so excited to see my grandfather again, I almost forgot who I met first. A very handsome, very muscular, very hotheaded Apache by the name of John Proudstar, who demanded that I talk some sense into his little brother James. John wants him to quit the Hellions and join the X-Men, and he wouldn’t take ‘I’ll try but I can’t promise anything’ for an answer. I couldn’t get rid of him until my grandfather appeared and gave him a very stern look.” 

Looking mildly embarrassed, Roberto says, “Before Juliana came, I got attacked by a… um… ghost vampire. He actually bit me, though there’s no mark now. But as soon as he did, he recoiled and screamed, ‘There is sunlight in your veins! It burns, it burns!’ And he flung his cloak over his face and turned into a bunch of bats… You guys! Stop laughing. It wasn’t funny.” 

“I think that was Dracula,” says Kitty. “Stop laughing, I’m serious. He nearly vamped Ororo. And me, too. I shoved a cross in his face, but since I’m not a Christian it didn’t work—it goes by belief, not by the symbol itself. But luckily, when he went to bite me, I was wearing my Star of David necklace, and he recoiled and screamed—You _guys…!_ Enough with the Dracula impressions!” 

It's a while before everyone stops dramatically flinging their forearms over their faces and flapping their hands to indicate flocks of bats. When they finally do, Rahne says with a shudder, "A horrid ghostie came after me. A whirlwind with the head of a man, with long dirty hair. He disappeared when I turned into a wolf and went for his throat.”

“That was Riptide, the Marauder,” Kitty tells her. “Ugh, I hate to think of him being here. He almost killed Kurt.”

Amara says, “I had an encounter with a woman my own age, colored like a rainbow. She told me that her name was Tommy and she was one of the Morlocks killed in the massacre. She thanked me for trying so hard to save their lives, and asked me to pass that on to you all and to the X-Men. Then she became thin, like a sheet of paper, and slipped away through a crack in the wall.” 

“But why are all these ghosts appearing to us tonight?” Illyana asks.

“Why is this night different from every other night?” murmurs Kitty, and snickers to herself. 

“I asked John Proudstar why he didn’t tell his brother directly,” Dani says. “He told me he’d tried, but tonight he had a feeling that he could talk to anyone as long as they were in this mansion. So it’s something specific to do with this place, this time.” 

For a moment, no one speaks. The sound of rain is very loud, but the words unspoken feel louder. 

_I should say it,_ Illyana thinks. _I’m the heartless demon sorceress. It won’t hurt me as much as it would hurt the others._

But Warlock is the one who says what they’re all thinking. “Friend Cypherdoug’s lifeglow was extinguished forever, like the lifeglows of other ghostvisitors. Query: why did selfriendoug not visit self? Query: where is selfriendoug?”

“The ghosts said they were here before, but they couldn’t communicate with us before,” says Illyana. “And Doug’s mutant power was communication.” 

“If my parents could visit from Heaven this night, then surely Doug can too,” Rahne says, scrubbing at her eyes. “I wish he’d come. I want to tell him I’m sorry.”

Everyone begins talking about what they’d like to say, then, one by one, fall silent.

“Doug?” Kitty calls out to the air. “Don’t be shy.”

“Selfsoulfriendcypher!” Warlock shouts excitedly. “Utilize postlife parahuman abilities to communicate with selfriends!”

Doug fades into view, leaning against the kitchen counter. Illyana had feared, and suspected Rahne had feared more, that if he appeared, it would be as a corpse. But he looks as he had in life, in his uniform with his blond hair mussed. There isn’t even any blood. 

_His power is communication,_ she thinks. _Images are communication, too. I guess he can make himself look however he likes._

“Hi,” he says. It shocks Illyana how ordinary his voice sounds. “I—I’m still getting the hang of this. It’s so different—so strange. Like learning to use my power all over again, or the first time I merged with Warlock. I didn’t _mean_ to give every ghost in the mansion a chance to speak their mind.”

Warlock is bouncing up and down, his yellow glow flashing like a neon sign. “Selfsoulfriendoug has returned!”

“Well…” Doug began, then smiled. “Yeah, I’m back, buddy. It’s good to see you again. It’s good to see you all.”

Once again, everyone begins to talk at once, but Doug doesn’t seem to have any trouble hearing everyone.

 _Communication,_ Illyana thinks again. _Speaking. Hearing. Seeing. Understanding._

She makes herself say the words she thinks she should say, but her mind is a million miles away. Doug is back, but he’s still dead. And death is something that she, more than anyone here but maybe Dani, understands. Illyana glances at Dani, and sees that their leader is standing aside, looking somber.

“Do you see Death standing over him?” Illyana asks her, keeping her voice low.

Dani shakes her head. “I’m a Valkyrie. I have the power to challenge Death for the lives of those I love. But this was a battle I never had the chance to fight. Death isn’t here; it’s already over.”

Rahne’s high voice pipes over the others, “What is Heaven like, Doug?” 

“I don’t know,” Doug replies. “I’ve been here this whole time. I can tell there’s somewhere else I could go—”

“Heaven,” says Rahne with utter conviction.

“The underworld,” says Amara with equal certainty.

 _Hell, or nothing at all,_ Illyana thought. _And if there’s a third option, I’ll certainly never know._

“I don’t know what it is,” Doug says. “All I can see is a path. But much as I like you guys, I don’t want to hang around the mansion forever. And some of the other ghosts feel the same way. I could lead them out. My power helps me perceive the way to go. But if I did, I don’t think I’d be coming back.”

Illyana expects Warlock to burst into a flurry of refusals and insistence that Doug stay. But instead, he says, “Query: this is what selfsoulfriendoug wants?”

“Yes,” says Doug.

“Then selfsoulfriendoug must travel that path. Assertion: selfriendcypherdoug will return some futureday.” 

Illyana has to bite her tongue to stop herself from begging Doug to stay. Who knows what lies beyond? Nothing in her experience says it’s anything good. But everyone else is saying their good-byes, sharing the memories and regrets and things they never said that they wished they’d said, and _she’s_ the one struggling to stay composed.

And then, suddenly, it’s over. With a final smile at Warlock, Doug fades away. The mansion feels silent and empty, though Illyana’s sure plenty of ghosts are still there. They just can’t perceive them any more.

There is a flash of lightning and a boom of thunder, and the lights go out. And stay out.

“I think there’s flashlights in the drawer to the left of the sink,” Kitty says.

Illyana hears footsteps, a thud, a heartfelt “Ow!” from Sam, the rattling of drawers, and then the click of a flashlight. But there’s no light.

“The battery’s dead,” says Dani. 

As they stand in utter blackness and silence, there is a long creeeeeeak as the front doors of the mansion swing open.

Rahne screams. 

The lights come back on as familiar voices flood the building. It’s the X-Men, come home at last. A larger crowd gathers in the kitchen as the New Mutants recount their story. 

Logan looks up from his beer. “You sure this wasn’t a dream? I left my brews right here…”

“And as you can see, they are all still here,” Amara points out.

“I’m sure,” Kitty says. “We’ve seen stranger—well, equally strange—things as this.”

The Professor says, “I checked their minds for signs of tampering or illusion-casting. There is none. And no drunkenness, either. This was real.”

Scott, who had not spoken before says, “Did any of you see Jean?”

The New Mutants all shake their heads. 

“Sorry,” says Kitty. “Wish I had.” 

“She’s got better things to do than hang around a school haunting people,” says Logan. 

“Most of the ghosts seen tonight had some specific connection with the people they visited,” Ororo points out. “But Jean barely knew Kitty, and never met any of the New Mutants. Perhaps Jean visits _us,_ and we simply cannot perceive it.”

All the X-Men glance around, as if hoping against hope to see a phantom glint of red hair. As they do, the New Mutants slip away, Kitty going with Illyana. As Ororo had said, she and Jean had barely known each other. She felt as much as if she was intruding on the X-Men’s grief as the X-Men probably had when Doug had died. 

Back in their room, Kitty shoves Lockheed off the pillow and crawls back into bed. Illyana sits down on the edge. Simultaneously, the girls sigh. 

Kitty says, “This is what I wanted so much—a chance to say good-bye. But now that I’ve gotten it, I’m not sure I knew what I was letting myself in for. I’d just gotten used to the idea that he was dead, and now I’ve got to get used to the idea that he was here anyway, and now he’s gone.”

“I just wish I knew where he went.” To Illyana’s horror, she hears her voice wobbling. She fights back the tears. Demon sorceresses do not cry. “I saw Belasco raise the dead. They—they hadn’t been anywhere good.”

“Belasco was an evil demon who always made things as horrifying as possible,” Kitty points out. “From what I saw of Kate and the other Rachel, death and whatever’s after it didn’t scare them half as much as their own future. And your brother hadn’t been anywhere horrible but Limbo itself, right?”

“Not as far as I could tell,” Illyana admits. “I know this is a terrible thing to want, but I hope he didn’t go with Doug, even if it was to a better place. I like to think he’s still around, visiting the other Illyana. And me. And that he really is proud.”

“It’s not terrible at all. _You’re_ not terrible." Kitty tugs at Illyana’s sleeve, coaxing her to lie down. "Would I want a terrible person in bed with me?”

“You might. You have weird tastes.”

“Come on, warm me up. Unless you’re scared of germs.”

“I’m a demon sorceress and supreme ruler of my own private hell-realm full of monsters,” Illyana declares, snuggling close. “Germs fear _me._ ”


End file.
